Stable nisin food-grade electrospun fibers

Abstract

Most of antimicrobial peptides interact with food components decreasing their activity, which limit their successful incorporation into packaging material, functional foods and edible films. The aim of this work was to develop a nisin carrier. Nanofibers of amaranth protein and pullulan (50:50) loaded with nisin were obtained by electrospinning. The nanofibers morphology was determined by scanning electron microscopy and fluorescent microscopy. The molecular interactions were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. The nisin loading efficiency as well as the antimicrobial activity against Leuconostoc mesenteroides were evaluated. The micrographs of the obtained materials exhibited smooth and continuous fibers with no defects characterized by diameters between 124 and 173 nm. The FTIR analysis showed intermolecular interactions mainly by hydrogen bonding. The electrospinning process improved the thermal properties of the polymeric mixture displacing the Tm peak to higher temperatures and increasing crystallinity. The antimicrobial activity of nisin in broth and agar against L. mesenteroides was maintained after incorporation into fibers. The results presented an outlook for the potential use of protein amaranth nanofibers when incorporating antimicrobials as a food preservation strategy.

Polymeric Antimicrobial Food Packaging and Its Applications

“…Nisin is used in more than 48 countries and approved by the USFDA. Nisin can inhibit the growth of a broad spectrum of Gram-positive microorganisms, such as Listeria monocytogenes [51,52] and prevent spore germination [53]. Nisin has both positive charges and hydrophobic groups.…”

Review of antimicrobial peptides as promoters of food safety: Limitations and possibilities within the food industry

“…Nanostructure materials have been studied for the protection of AMPs antimicrobial activity, for example, nanoparticles, nanoliposomes, and nanofibers (Mahdavi, Mohammad, & Nouri, 2019;Soto et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2017). bial and antioxidant activity, which also showed enhanced stability of nisin and curcumin (Luo et al, 2020).…”

Antimicrobial Peptide‐Based Electrospun Fibers for Wound Healing Applications

“…ESF‐AMP systems have also used organic co‐polymer combinations to produce fibers . Produced ESFs of amaranth protein and pullulan together with the AMP nisin for food preservation instead of wound healing have been made.…”

“…A total of 13 different AMPs have been utilized with studies being reported in 18 publications as of 2019 ( Table 4 ). The most common AMP studied to date is nisin . Nisin ( Figure 5 ) is one of the most well‐known bactericidins and is the only american food and drug administration (FDA) food grade approved antimicrobial, thus making it an attractive choice for exploratory studies in combining AMPs with other technologies such as electrospinning.…”

“…Current research combining ESFs and AMPs has so far been promising, especially the few in vivo reports that demonstrate a rate of wound closure and regeneration up to twice as fast . However, to date nearly every publication that combines ESFs and AMPs uses basic solution electrospinning setups, with only more recent studies exploiting more complex co/triaxial setups or multi‐polymer systems . More advanced combination techniques such as binding spacers to AMPs to allow for greater movement and thus improved activity remain to be explored in electrospinning systems .…”